Marathon Training to End Stroke; Or Gimmee Your Dollars and No One Gets Spammed

My father suffered a massive debilitating stroke in 2002. It has left him largely immobilized and dependent upon his family and caretakers for many of his basic needs. My dad's always been bright, funny, compassionate, generous and vaguely embarrassing in that way that parents often can be when they're clever and enjoy the minor mortification of their children. The stroke has left him with most of his mental faculties – his intelligence, his wit, his kindness, but without most of his physical acuity. He can't indulge in any of the hobbies that brought joy and meaning to his life – woodworking, playing the guitar, cooking, walking his beloved dog, going on trips with his wife.

Modern medicine worked a sort of miracle on my father – he's alive. I say that completely without irony. Probably, he shouldn't have been. The doctors told us he wouldn't survive, that he would go into a coma and not come out of it. Our gratitude, my gratitude that he is still here is immeasurable.

My father's stroke impacted everyone around him – my step-mother, my step-siblings, their familes, my grandfather, even my own mother, my relatives on my mother's side. Watching someone go, overnight, from active, vibrant, challenging and amazing to completely dependent and utterly changed is terrifying, it's heart-wrenching, and it's all too common in our current society.

It changed everyone's life without a single warning.

Genetics worked against my dad. Lifestyle choices worked against him. Medicine worked against him (a small hole in his heart that should have been found when he was a child allowed the blood clot through that caused the stroke).

I have struggled with many aspects of my relationship with him – are divergent and completely similar personalities; his need to have his way constantly; his reluctance to accept his situation and make the steps and strides I think he should – but in all that, I am terribly, terribly happy that he is still here and making me utterly nuts.

This was not the only medical scare that I, or my family, faced over the next few years. Ironically, they all involved blood clots, involved that same tiny little inability of the body to do what it was supposed to do.

Several months ago, when looking for a way to give some of my time and energy to a cause, I came across the training program for the Stroke Foundation. It only took me a minute to decide that it was something I wanted to participate in. Training for a marathon (or in my case, more likely, a half marathon) while raising money to fund research for something that has immediately touched my life and those of my loved ones? Not something that took a lot of thought. (Those of you who know me, who know my attitude towards running if not being chased, stop laughing right this minute! You can walk the marathon too, or walk/run it!)

This was a way to change my own life and habits, and support my father in a way I have not always been able to do face to face. While raising money to fund research may not seem very personal, it is, for me, a way to answer many of his fears and hurts over the years – that I am not on his side, that I am unsupportive, that I'm too angry to be there for him. He isn't wrong. He's not right either. I am angry that he set himself up for this to happen. I am equally angry at his body, at fate, at everything that led up to and allowed this to happen.

But I love him, and I want him to know how much. Plus, I want other people who face this issue, who've watched friends and loved ones combat this issue to have more options, more knowledge, more possibility.

So, I'm doing something that makes me vaguely uncomfortable (asking for donations) to do something that will make me physically uncomfortable (marathoning) in order to hopefully provide something for others that will make their lives more comfortable.

My dad was relatively young - 54. It's something that can happen at any age, and certain factors make the risk that much greater (when he was in the hospital, a woman only a few years younger than me had suffered a similar stroke to my father's).

The website for my donation page is here. Info about the American Stroke Association is here.

Regardless of whether or not you donate, I appreciate the support and the forum to put this out there into the vast world of the internets.

Catching Up on a Friday

It's struggling to rain here, which puts us up on most of the country where snow is still falling like it's forgotten how to stop. But it gives the mornings these queer glowing grey casts that make me sort of sleepy and confused.

Driving out of the carport this morning, a little later than normal since I was at work late last night, I paused backing out as this full grown coyote walks into the parking space next to my car, and just looks at me, face tired and a little sad. I wanted to stop, and comfort him, offer him food or rest or whatever his poor coyote heart wanted, find out what drove him down into our carport at 9:30 in the morning.

It was so strange, surreal like a movie. He stood there like a dog, just watching me. And even though I know he's going to go eat someone's cat – which is what you do when you're a coyote and the neighborhood is full of snacks for the taking – I still wanted to hold onto him, cry against him. He looked how I felt, raggedy and shedding and a little lost.

I need to write, find some solace in that, I guess. It's usually there to be found.

Mike has taken to entertaining himself with the canned air. He has two bottles of it, and in addition to spraying it at the cats (the white one, already too cross-eyed to see enemies approaching, just wrinkles his nose and braces for attack. Georgie, sadly, freaks out completely upon even seeing the canned air), has now also taken to trying to spray me with it. If we have to call the paramedics because I've "accidentally" kicked him in the head, so be it. (This is like when I was taking Krav Maga, and he thought he was too strong for me to take down, and was so, so wrong. Of course, we didn't call the paramedics then either. But not too many boys want to admit to "injury via being a dumb ass." although I'm guessing it's a typical symptom).

However, he now has a dozen or so beer bottles lined up, all filled with various levels of beer, and is blowing the air into or over them to produce "musical works." Whether or not this is better than the "beeramid" remains to be seen.

My life? Oy. It's not even funny anymore. Okay, it's a little funny.


In an effort to avoid Mike and his beer bottle orchestra last night, I harassed various acquaintances until someone was willing to entertain me, and we ended up at this: The Moth. Every month they offer a topic, and people come up and tell 5 minute stories and it was a lot of fun. Made me wonder if I could actually tell a coherent story (with a point) to an audience. I'm a good public speaker, I can tell a story, I can read my work, but I'm not sure I could do a combination of those things.

So That's How You Become A Grownup

While I firmly believe that certain milestones smack you into "adult" status (buying a house, reproducing, taking care of or weathering an ill parent), there are other markers as well, and despite my own maturity, I've had... trouble with them over the years.

This comes as a shock to no one.

Many of them have to do with either authority or finances, and I've been in the past, a mess with both.

I'm struggling to do better, for many reasons, my own sanity top amongst them.

So, I want high praise and accolades for the fact that in the past few months I have done the following:

1) Signed up for my company's 401K. I don't want any grief about not doing this sooner, all I want is praise for finally having done it.

2) Paid my parking ticket.... wait for it... on time. (Mostly. And I paid it online. But I frigging paid it before it turned into a $150 ticket that I had to pay to register my car and that, folks, is a milestone).

3) Honestly looked at my bank balance, calculated what I needed to save, paid off some outstanding bills that I didn't realize were outstanding, and just got some of that in order.

I'm going to leave work early tonight to do laundry, so if the apocalypse comes, blame me.

Been Along Time Coming

Sorry for the absence! Real life got in the way, and stayed in the way!

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity:

- Breakfast date (boy from the internet. 1.5 stars. Nice, sweet, bought breakfast. Not my type at all. He went to mass before breakfast for Palm Sunday, was in the Navy. Works in IT. Not compatible, nice nonetheless.)

- Worked (client), worked some more (student), worked again (book editing with 83 year old).

- Went to local production of "The Sound of Music". Did not know until I got there that it was an all children cast (5-12 year olds). Demanded much booze of the person who brought me.

- Ate oysters as reward for all children musical.

- Met up with T. to gather data points. He bought the drinks.

-Collapsed into bed at 1:30 a.m.


This has been a weekend of acknowledging my own complicity in my unhappiness. I realized two things:

One:
I am unhappy about the no longer dating boy, and not contacting him only sounds less complicit than answering when he e-mails. It's the same. It's making me sad, and I'm buying into it because I like him and don't want to not hear from him. It's not... helping though. I need to stop. He is continuing because I don't tell him to stop, because I give him tacit permission. Therefore, I am complicit. But it will hurt, and it will mean giving up the illusions/hopes I have pretended I don't have, so it will also be embarrassing. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Two:

I am complicit in M's growing alcoholism because I have not said, "You have a problem. This will only end a few ways, and none of them are good." The argument that M. is not my responsibility is a false construct. There isn't anyone else to say this to him, and his behavior is escalating (two instances of losing his car, one of which also involved losing his jacket and keys and sleeping in a pile of leaves in our front yard for four hours because he couldn't get into the house and I didn't have my phone in my room and didn't hear him knock.)

Neither conversation is one I want to have. One makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed and sad. The other makes me nervous, and equally sad.

I feel that both mean some sort of surgical removal of men that I love in various ways. I kind of hate that, but one is better for me, and the other is better for both M. and I. Most days, I hate being a grown up.

In other news, I've got a music review up: http://www.popnography.com/2008/03/spending-the-ni.html
We went to see The Magnetic Fields a few weeks ago - amazing, amazing show. So go read about it!

Thanskgiving and the Inside of My Head

So, having lost my voice completely, I've been contemplating how different my inner monologue and outer words are (and those moments when I'm tired, tipsy or sated on something and the inside and outside voices co-mingle to an unsettling degree).

My inner monologue without any sort of startling interruption (like the current one shouting move out, move out, move out omg so you don't kill him with the broom) goes sort of like this:

"That step should work, why doesn't it work, it works in my head... oh my god -insert name of editor, art director, staff member, etc - are you trying to make me crazy? Right right. Nothing's personal. Nope that's personal... C'mon, c'mon, e-mail me dammit!! ...Character A should do this, it would totally... oh now what? No, no we are not doing that. Tell him no! Seriously. No. Oh god, please tell my boss to stop singing Barry Manilow next door, Mandy, Angel sang Mandy. Angel was not as hot as Booth... I wonder what my odds are of getting laid this weekend are... No, you still cannot do that... Seriously, Are you stupid? ... Oh god, Dad, becoming a Dodgers fan is not really a legitimate reason to call me... Why can't I remember how to say fuck you in Latin this morning. I knew it yesterday...nope, that still means to fuck sheep. Dammit."

Honestly? If any of my co-workers knew how often I was contemplating either a)shoes b)writing c)sex or d) their IQs, they'd be appalled. Particularly at the vast and sundry combinations of a, b, & c that occur at the same time, occasionally when I'm talking to them (these intersections never involve the co-workers. Rest assured. They'd also be appalled at how often I swear in my head. Although, given my tendency to swear out loud, they probably wouldn't be surprised. (I don't necessarily advocate that kind of language at work, but it's sort of become a necessary evil of working entirely with men who will push to find out if your metaphorical balls are bigger than their actuals).

Also, this week is Thanksgiving, a favorite holiday of mine, and is always a time to be grateful for what I have: health, opportunity, friends and family whom I love, who love and support me back, a giant black cat who survived this year's excursion, a job, a vehicle, a good brain and the will to use it, a place to live and food to eat. None of those things are to be taken for granted.

Finally, I have started a countdown clock on the Facebook.com account for moving out of the apartment. I feel like I need a lot of things around me to encourage this change. I... I've never looked for an apartment for myself. These things have always fallen into my lap, and now I very much need a sort of impetus and direction that is unusual to me.

We're Definitely Not on the PC Vacation Schedule

We didn't have Monday off for Veteran's Day, which is what happens when corporate America sets it's holiday schedule sometime in the early part of last century. We did have Columbus Day off, but the whole thing is an odd trade (normally it's a Columbus Day/MLK Jr. day trade off).

When you're on a month long production cycle that's forecasting two months ahead though, it's hard to live in the actual month.

As a result, I hadn't much thought about the day (until realizing somewhat late into it that Veteran's Day explained the lack of traffic and the quiet around the internet). And driving over to a friend's to do my laundry (60 pairs of underwear, four hours, two eps of Cold Case, 1 HIMYM, and catching up on Dexter later), I heard a piece on NPR about homeless vets and how that issue extended back all the way to not only our Civil War, but the English Revolutionary war. That armies have always pulled from those who don't have a lot of other options, that there are rarely places to come home to. The piece mentioned the GI Bill, and how that forestalled some of the homelessness, providing two years unquestioning unemployment to both resettle the returning soldiers and to allow the economy to readjust. It talked about the WWI vets and how Hoover had them swept from the streets of Washington DC out of fear that they were communist sympathizers.

And of course, I did start to cry. I'd like to say thank you to the soldiers who've gotten such a poor welcome over the years and centuries, the people we send to war, use as political and cannon fodder and fail to support when they return. My grandfather was in WWII, fought in Japan, this young kid from Western Wyoming, naming my dad after a friend of his who'd died in the war - John Luckey, ironically enough, and everyone has always called my dad Luckey instead of Theo. I've no idea how the war changed my grandfather. He doesn't talk about that sort of thing, instead is the gentle little old Greek man, ridiculous about animals, handsome and short, and plays guitar all around town, unintentionally wooing the ladies and mourning his wife of 60 years who passed the winter my father had his stroke.

The writer's strike made me cry for a different reason, the United Hollywood blog was giving a list of FAQs, and one of them was whether or not non-union members could help picket and there answer was unanimously yes, and for some reason that just made me ridiculously teary. Labor relations are definitely an old pinko commie issue, and one I'm fully in support of, and it makes me happy to see people supporting the striking writers. I hope the support continues!

My dad was part of the teacher's union growing up, was in charge of it for awhile, and I distinctly remember them striking on cold and snowy days, marching unhappily and resolutely for equal pay and treatment for people tasked with educating children. I've never forgotten that, how conflicted they all were, and united none the less.

Oh, and BTW, thanks to Mom and to Michael for the Bob Dylan additions:)

One of the joys of being a Dylan acolyte is that everyone I know has sent me this, and I've loved seeing everyone else's message.

Here's mom's:

I Dare You Not To Laugh

Just spent my evening helping Lori Ann pack up the rest of her place to move (unexpectedly, and gratefully I might add because I didn't think I'd get to see her for ages).

She gave me all their booze, which was mostly vodka, Jack, Kahlua,
Bailey's and some cheap brandy.

I just took a bath, went outside to smoke in my bathrobe with a modified White Russian (we don't have milk. The Bailey's had to substitute).

Realized, as I sat on the porch at quarter to 1 a.m. : I have become the dude.

(This story is funnier if you've known me for ten years and were around for the years that we'd routinely come home to find Mike in his plaid bathrobe and long hair, joint lit and White Russian in hand).

I never thought it would happen to me!